


best friends, right

by returnsandreturns



Category: Psych
Genre: Bisexual Character, Divorce, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Tentative WIP, Young Love, ftm character, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 18:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2120616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returnsandreturns/pseuds/returnsandreturns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Shawn comes out to Gus, they are thirteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	best friends, right

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is forever old, and I am merely releasing it as one part of a larger universe that I may or may not continue.
> 
> 2\. This is about Shawn as a transgender man. I am not trans, so if I've fucked anything up, please tell me. I've kept he/him pronouns throughout, since I intended this to be a retrospective. This part of the story is all before he's aware that he's trans.
> 
> 3\. I tried to keep to a timeline with actual events like Shawn' s parents divorce and also references but it was not a huge priority.

The first time Shawn comes out to Gus, they're thirteen and it's Christmas Eve and Shawn is wearing the dress that his mom picked out because maybe she'll start smiling again. At this point, he's got a different name, and he's still trying to be a girl, because he hasn't realized that there are other options.

They're sitting on Gus' staircase while their parents drink wine and Gus' sister is huddled on the sofa with her friends, and Shawn says, "You know Tricia?" 

Gus raises eyebrows over his mug of cocoa. 

"With the Madonna hair?" 

"Yeah," Shawn says. "I like saying her name. Tree-shaw." 

"She's cute," Gus says, because Gus has started saying things like that, lately. Sometimes, Shawn doesn't think he always knows what he's talking about, but Gus isn't like a lot of other guys their age who try to make up for all their feelings by being assholes. He's just like an older version of himself, like he's the Gus who still likes Batman and Gilligan marathons but who also has a Playboy he stole from his dad hidden under his mattress.

"I think I might marry her," Shawn says, casually.

To his credit, Gus doesn't look all that surprised. 

"Maybe you should try being friends with her first," he suggests, and Shawn pushes back bangs and smirks at him. Maybe Shawn doesn't really know what he is yet, and maybe the word lesbian is weird and foreign and kind of terrifying, but Gus just starts talking about the merits of _Saved By The Bell _Tiffani Amber Thiessen versus _90210_ Tiffani Amber Thiessen, and everything seems okay. __

__

__*_ _

__For Christmas that year, Shawn gets a makeup kit from his least favorite grandmother, and a finger printing set from his dad-who then proceeds to create an elaborate crime scene that requires Shawn to solve the mystery before they can eat Christmas dinner. It takes all day. Shawn's mom locks herself in her room and refuses to participate. She did a lot of stuff like that, right before she left._ _

__She buys Shawn a pretty velvet dress, smiling indulgently when she says, "I know you hate them, but it's for your grandmother." His mom never makes him do anything he doesn't want to do, so he can do this, even if it makes him feel like he's going to jump out of his skin._ _

__He wears it all day, gets his black tights dusty from crawling around under the kitchen table with a black light, looking for fake bloodstains. There are strings hanging from the hem of it by the time they're sitting down for dinner, but his grandmother says, "Don't you look lovely," and his mother looks happy, really happy._ _

__*_ _

__When he is fourteen, Shawn kisses Gus outside his house at three in the morning. It's an act of pure momentum, his fingers fisted in the Ninja Turtles t-shirt that Gus has been sleeping in for way too long, short enough now that is shows a crescent of skin every time he moves.  Shawn kisses Gus because he just snuck out of his window to walk here, bare foot in pajamas, because that's something you do after you've run away from home for the first time._ _

__He's pretty sure his mom is gone for real this time. He tells Gus this like it isn't a big deal, the _biggest_  deal, like they're just having a normal conversation outside in the middle of the night, their toes digging into the cold wet grass. And Gus, because he's Gus, says, "Damn," and they stand in silence for a long moment before he's pulling Shawn into a hug and Shawn, in one of his better moves, turns that hug into an awkward, terrible, borderline painful kiss. _ _

__Gus goes still against him, resting their foreheads together, eyes wide when Shawn finally opens his._ _

__"That was new," Gus says, nervously._ _

__"I'm a renegade now," Shawn replies, laughing, just on this edge of hysterical. This is the kind of thing they are supposed to be doing, he thinks, because Shawn is reckless and Gus still tucks in his shirts in his jeans and they're supposed to balance each other out. Gus keeps Shawn from going over lots of different types of cliffs, and Shawn makes sure that Gus doesn't spend his whole day balancing his stock portfolio or whatever it is that adults do. It just makes sense._ _

__

__*_ _

__The next night, once Gus' mom has sent him back home, Shawn cuts his hair in his mom's bathroom. The room smells warm and like talcum powder and vanilla, and his hair falls in big chunks into the sink and on the floor. When he's finished, he looks a little more fucked up than usual-that's a word he's learning how to use, _fuck, fucked_. Like, his mom's old Nissan isn't going to pull into the driveway ever again so namely their family is fucked. _ _

__He left White Snake playing on the boombox in his room so his dad would think that he was still in there, so he'd knock on the door a few times and yell for him to turn it down._ _

__When he finally comes out of the bathroom, his hair still scattered everywhere, his mom and dad are hugging in the hallway outside. They don't even notice Shawn until he makes a noise that he can't contain, and then they both look up and his dad says, more tired than angry for once, "Oh, kid, what did you do to yourself."_ _

__His mom smiles, carefully._ _

__"Oh, Henry, a lot of girls are going short these days," she says. "Cyndi Lauper, right?"_ _

__Shawn nods soundlessly, even though, no. Not Cyndi Lauper._ _

__"We'll just take you to the beauty shop tomorrow and get it straightened up a little." She wipes tears from her eyes casually, with the back of her hand, and moves forward to run a hand over the little tufts and spikes on Shawn's head. She pulls him into a hug, and Shawn breathes in deep, smells talcum powder, vanilla, the cigarettes she always says she's giving up._ _

__"Yeah," his dad says, gruffly. "It could look nice."_ _

__He ruffles Shawn's hair and leaves without saying anything else, and Shawn goes to help his mother clean the bathroom up, shaking even though he couldn't really say _why_. When he looks at the mirror on his tiny white kid vanity, the one his mother grew up with, he feels something strong rush through his body. Not like a punch to the gut but, like. Like drinking a really cold glass of water after you've been thirsty for way too long. His face is just starting to thin out from the baby fat days of yesteryear and getting rid of the hair that fell past his shoulders makes him look even older. _ _

__He runs a hand over uneven bangs and thinks about what he wants to look like, if he were given a choice, even if it's kind of cloudy around the edges._ _

__

__*_ _

__Shawn makes Gus sneak into the theater to see _Point Break_ , mostly because the workers there are tired of Shawn trying to get them into R-rated movies by pretending to be Gus' legal guardian. Halfway through, Gus takes his hand and they sit with their palms sweating and their fingers sliding together for the rest of the time, even when they sneak out the side exit with the credits and race each other to the beach. Or, well, it's more like Shawn pulls Gus to the beach, because they're still holding hands and Gus doesn't exactly want to go. He's got this whole thing about sand in uncomfortable places and bacteria everywhere. It's whatever. His parents have him brainwashed to think 98.5% of everything on earth is going to kill him, including Shawn, so there's nothing to be done about it. _ _

__Gus stands back when Shawn runs into the water just as a wave hits the shore, tousling his newly shorn hair and yelling, "100 PERCENT PURE ADRENALINE," in his best Patrick Swayze._ _

__He's completely soaked when he stumbled back to Gus, collapsing into him._ _

__"That movie was not good," Gus says. "It was a bad movie."_ _

__"Don't be the one boy in the world to not love the most perfectly cheesy surfer action movie," Shawn says. He leans in a little closer to narrow his eyes at Gus, clutching his arms and getting his polo damp. He can feel the salt crusting in his hair. He wants to kiss Gus again, but the timing isn't right._ _

__"The _script_ ," Gus says, painfully._ _

__"You are too young to be complaining about scripts, Roger Ebert," Shawn says. Then his face splits into a grin, one that makes Gus reel back a little but that feels better than anything else has for a while._ _

__He grits out, " _I'll see you in hell, Johnny_ ," and Gus yelps as Shawn uses all his strength to drag him into the water and push him in. They wrestle, choking on water, until Gus is sprawled out on the sand and Shawn is sitting on his chest, whistling. _ _

__"I'm king of the world," he says, cheerfully._ _

__"I can't really breathe," Gus replies._ _

__They stay on the beach until sunset even though both of their parents are going to be angry at them for not coming home. Everybody's been worried lately, but they're practically adults, almost in high school. Freshman year starts in a few weeks._ _

__They dig their toes into the sand and Gus only lectures about the possibility of mites and broken glass and used needles for like five minutes until Shawn tangles their fingers together again and holds on like it matters._ _

__"I thought you liked girls," Gus says, after a while, when mostly everyone else has gone home and the beach is quiet except for the ocean noises._ _

__Shawn screws up his face._ _

__"I think I do," he says. Gus wasn't his first kiss, after all. He kissed Sandy Albright, one of the other detectives' daughter, in her bright pink bedroom when their parents decided that they should have a sleepover because both of them needed more girlfriends. They probably didn't mean it so literally._ _

__Sandy tasted like Bubble Yum and her hair had so much hairspray in it that it crunched when Shawn tried to run his fingers through it. It made his heart beat fast, though-her tongue touching his, his hand up her back, on her bra- even when she made him promise not to tell anyone because they were just practicing, anyway. Girls do this all the time._ _

__When he told Gus about it later, he just nodded agreeably and said, "Based on that movie that my dad forgot to take out of the VHS in the basement, girls definitely do that all the time."_ _

__"I'm not a girl," Gus says, now._ _

__"Are you sure?" Shawn asks, and Gus punches him in the arm. He laughs, though._ _

__"Both, then," he says._ _

__Shawn leans into him, heavily, says, "Yeah. Both."_ _


End file.
